Paper Short Abstract:

The NordPoW project focuses on developing a GIS-based research infrastructure to examine religious culture in and across Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway. The paper will address the "power play" between (for example): digital media affordances and research outcomes; digital accuracy and a messy reality; the aims of a research infrastructure versus a mere documentation project.

Paper Abstract:

This paper aims to explore the use of digital methods in studying (religious) culture - both locally and across the Nordic countries. The NordPoW project focuses on developing a GIS-based research infrastructure to examine religious culture in and across Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway. While the map, which is based on the location, year of inauguration, and religious affiliation, of churches and prayer houses, appears precise due to the binary nature of data visualization, it is inherently reliant on estimations and approximations.

With thousands of data points, and some uncertainties in details, achieving 100% accuracy is neither feasible nor practical. However, grappling with these uncertainties offers valuable insights into the complex and often ambiguous realities of religious cultures - realities that disciplines such as Church History or Theology may sometimes oversimplify.

Given the map’s purpose of studying culture through broad religious patterns, these inaccuracies are not a significant issue. Nevertheless, challenges arise in public communication, particularly when discrepancies - such as placing a beloved prayer house 200 meters from its actual location - become evident.

This paper will specifically address the following “power plays”: To what extent do digital media affordances dictate the actual outcome of such a project? can churches and prayer houses, or not, be points of entry to the study of religious culture; what is the relation between estimations and accuracies when curating the data for the database; and, how to balance the aims and needs of a research infrastructure project versus a documentation project?